


The Lemon Cake War

by jonsasnow



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, based off of a tweet i saw lol, emphasis on goofy, in a good way?, jonsa, just fluffy goofy fun, policeman!jon, this is a weird one shot, what even are tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 23:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18020138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonsasnow/pseuds/jonsasnow
Summary: When Jon pulls over a car, the last thing he expects to find is a boot filled to the brim with lemon cakes and an unfairly hot redhead who swears she's not some kind of black market lemon cake dealer. The truth is, she explains, she's engaged in some lemon cake war with a bitchy mother from her little brother's school.It's really the last thing he expected on his shift but colour him intrigued. He just has to know now who wins the lemon cake war. He's not-so-secretly rooting for the hot redhead.





	The Lemon Cake War

**Author's Note:**

> I can't find the tweet anymore but it's based off of a shit post on twitter and now here we are hahaha
> 
> Enjoy?!

Being a cop in Edinburgh is a lot of work. Not because the level of crime is higher than any other city in Scotland but more so the fact that there are several universities here and drunk uni students are bloody idiots. Jon was young once, so he thinks he gets it, but even Theon back in his heyday was not as much of a death-defying moron as some of the students he gets nowadays. But it’s not totally a loss. He gets some funny, absurd stories to tell the boys when they meet up every weekend at the pub for drinks and at least he’s never bored for long on the job. 

One time, they were called to a halls of residence because one of the lads got his head stuck in the window trying to leave a girl’s room after spending the night there. The fire brigade had to be called in too and it was a really long night of trying not to laugh outright at the affronted girl and mortified boy. 

So when it comes to ridiculous situations, Jon is more than used to them and actually comes to expect the ridiculous, but he is still completely caught off-guard when he pulls a Kia Picanto over because the boot isn’t closed properly and he discovers a mind-boggling amount of tupperwares full of, what she says, are lemon cakes. Not that he doubts her. The smell of lemons is overwhelming. 

Still, why are there _so many_ lemon cakes? 

“I - It’s not like I’m some weird lemon cake dealer!” she splutters out, defensive. Apparently, he had asked that out loud. “My little brother has this food fair at school and there’s a competition, and well, there’s this evil bitch helicopter mum whose son keeps bullying my brother and when we went to her about it, she just shrugged and was like ‘maybe it’ll toughen Rickon up; he’s a bit frail, don’t you think?’” Her voice went up two octaves in imitation of this mum, he presumes, and her nose scrunches up in distaste afterwards. Jon really shouldn’t find that so endearing, not when she’s possibly insane. “And I just _know_ Evil Bitch Mum will bake lemon cakes for the competition and as if I’m just going to let her win, right? Lemon cakes are _my_ thing!” 

Her chest heaves rapidly as she catches her breath. “ _Right?_ ” she asks again and Jon panics for a second because he didn’t know that warranted a response. He’s not exactly invested in this lemon cake war but he could be invested in _her_. 

“Uh, right,” he murmurs slowly. “But Miss, that doesn’t quite explain - well, all of this.” He gestures to the boot completely packed to the rim with tupperwares of lemoncakes. 

Her pale cheeks flush a pink rosy colour. She might be the cutest person he’s ever met. 

“I baked them all,” she admits with a dismissive shrug but the obvious blush says otherwise. “I can’t let her win, Officer -” she squints at his name tag. “Officer Snow. I need to make sure my lemon cakes are better!” 

“So let me get this straight,” Jon shifts his weight. “You baked dozens of different kinds of lemon cakes just so you can beat the Evil Mum?” 

“Evil _Bitch_ Mum,” she corrects but nods, a small bashful smile on her lips. “So you get it!” 

He doesn’t but he’s not going to tell her that. 

“Yeah, I think so,” Jon says. He’s a little dazed, if he’s being honest, because this is certainly a situation he’s never been in before and this woman is more than a little distracting. “Umm but you still can’t drive with your boot open.” 

She blinks for a second and then smiles. “Oh of course, Officer Snow!” She turns immediately towards the boot and tries to close it. To her surprise, it doesn’t. There are simply too many tupperwares. 

“Maybe you could move some to your backseat?” he suggests, and she turns to beam at him, which is terrible and awful and he really shouldn’t be this attracted to a crazy lemon cake lady.

She attempts to carry a whole towering stack of tupperwares and nearly topples over in the process. Jon’s hand immediately goes to her waist to steady her and he doesn’t know who’s more surprised by the sudden physical contact, him or her, but he retracts it just as quickly.

“Uh, why don’t you let me?” he offers, to which she nods, grateful. Jon helps the lemon cake lady, who he later finds out is called Sansa Stark, for the next half hour. They manage to transport half of the lemon cake tupperwares to the backseat and it’s enough for the boot to close this time. Once they’re satisfied, Jon walks Sansa to her car but he doesn’t want to say goodbye. Maybe it’s the overwhelming aroma of lemons clouding his judgement or maybe it’s the way she keeps smiling at him, but he’s a little invested in this saga and he tells her as much – or at least the part about being invested in her weird war. 

This apparently scores him way more points than helping her move the tupperwares because the smile she shoots at him now is downright _blinding_. “Really?” she asks, a little incredulous. “You don’t think I’m just completely mad?” 

Jon chuckles softly. “I never said I didn’t. But I must say you’ve intrigued me. I have to know if you beat Evil Mum at the fair.” 

“Evil _Bitch_ Mum,” she corrects again with an exasperated look on her face, like she’s gone over this with him a million times and he needs to get it right before she directs her ire at him. But the look is abruptly gone from her face, replaced by a timid, thoughtful expression. “You know,” she begins, dragging out the syllables. “I could use a taste tester… if you’re free… I mean not right now. Just if you have time or… Of course you’d be doing me a huge favour! But I really don’t want to put you out or anything. It’s just - I’ve tasted _soooo_ many lemon cakes in the past few days that I don’t think I have any taste buds left.”

She’s _not_ smooth, he notes with as much endearment as before. But neither is he if Theon, Sam and Tormund are to be believed. 

“I get off work at 5 today.”

“I can text you my address,” she grins, wider than before, more confident and pleased than embarrassed and shy. He likes both smiles. 

They exchange numbers and Jon finds himself thoroughly distracted for the rest of his shift. It doesn’t help that for the rest of the day he smells like lemons, but it’s not just that. She has consumed every one of his senses. He can feel the heat of her back on his fingertips; see the curve of her lips as he’s driving through Edinburgh; and he swears he can almost taste the lemons already. It’s absurd, of course, that one short encounter with the woman could render him so incapable of thinking of anything else and Jon chalks it up to the lemon cake saga. Even if she didn’t look or act like she did, he probably would have been just as intrigued by the whole absurd situation. Granted, Jon probably wouldn’t have arranged to go back to a stranger’s house to taste all of her lemon cakes but he definitely would have kept tabs on the food fair competition just to see if she won. 

By the end of his shift, Jon begins to feel the nerves crawling up his spine. He hasn’t been on a real, proper date since Ygritte dumped him and moved halfway around the world. _Not_ that this is actually date but it could be. He thinks she’s attracted to him but he’s not sure if she’s actually interested him or interested in having another human present to taste her lemon cakes. But Jon thinks she _could_ be interested in him. There was definitely a connection there, a chemistry that buzzed between them, and he wants to know where it leads. 

And if it all goes to crap, at least he’ll get a lifetime’s share of lemon cakes. 

Jon knocks on her door at ten past six. He doesn’t bring anything. He isn’t sure if it’d be more awkward if he shows up with flowers or food, like he’s proclaiming this a real date without asking her, or more awkward if he shows up empty-handed. He’s so busy stressing himself over this that he’s nearly late altogether so he quickly jumps in the shower, scrubs himself raw, tries to get his hair into some semblance of a shape but in the end ties it at the nape of his neck, and runs out the door. 

He’s still nervous when she opens the door but somehow none of that really registers to him because for that split second, he’s struck once more by how devastating she is in person. Her hair is down whereas it had been piled up into a bun earlier and it swings past her shoulder in soft waves. She has a pair of round black-rimmed glasses on and a Little Mermaid apron on with flour all over. There’s even specks of flour across her cheek. Jon itches to wipe it away but he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his trousers instead.

“Hi,” he says when the silence draws on too long. “I hope you’re still serious about this.”

Sansa laughs, a bright burst and steps back to usher him inside her flat. “Oh my gosh, I’ve been waiting for you all day! I tried to coerce my siblings and my coworkers into coming over but they all refused. You’re the only person to say yes!” 

He knows she meant that in a broad sense, that she’s just glad _someone_ is here to help her in her weird lemon cake war, but he’s still pleased to bits and can’t help the smile near-splitting his face. “Well, I’m your guy,” he says lightly. 

Before either of them can say anything further, a small grey and white dog bounds over. It _looks_ like a Siberian Husky but it’s way too small to be one. He’d know; Ghost is much, much bigger. It runs up to him, fearless, and sniffs his feet.

“Lady,” Sansa says. “This is Jon. Jon, this is my Lady.” 

Jon kneels so he’s level with the dog and offers his hand for her to sniff. “Hi Lady,” he greets, and once he passes her test, he scratches behind her ears to her delight. “Aren’t you a pretty girl?” 

“She’s an Alaskan Klee Kai,” Sansa answers his unspoken question. At his glance, she laughs. “Everyone asks. People always assume she’s a Husky puppy or something. This is just how big they get.” 

“She’s adorable,” Jon tells her as he gets up. “Much more well-behaved than my dog.”

“You have a dog?!” 

“Yeah, his name’s Ghost. He’s an albino Siberian Husky so he’s got red eyes. People are kind of terrified of him when they see him,” Jon admits. “And he can be aggressive if he senses anyone he considers a part of his pack is in danger but he’s really just a sweet dog.” 

As a relatively quiet person, there is only one topic that gets Jon talking more than normal and that’s his dog. He loves Ghost more than he loves most people but they just get each other. He doesn’t really get people on any sort of level. It was also one of the real contentions between Ygritte and him, and why it probably wouldn’t have worked out even if she hadn’t dumped him. Ygritte never understood Ghost and she never understood Jon’s attachment to his dog. 

“I’d like to meet him. I used to foster Staffordshire Bull Terriers before I got Lady,” she explains. “I hate when people preemptively judge dogs based on appearance. Staffies are some of the sweetest dogs around. If a dog is mean, it’s because the owner is mean.” 

Jon _might_ be in love with her. 

“Umm, so the lemon cakes,” Sansa abruptly changes the topic, her cheeks turning a shade of red. He’s not sure why she’s blushing but he lets the topic go and follows her into the kitchen. Every inch of space is covered in the tupperwares he helped her with earlier in the day. Lord knows how she managed to get them up to her flat by herself but he’s impressed and also once more struck by the oddity of this situation. 

“Just for clarification, how many types of lemon cakes are there?” 

Sansa scrunches up her nose in thought. “Maybe around 10? Or more? I didn’t really keep count.” 

“ _Right_.” 

“Jon Snow, you’re not going to back out on me now, are you!” Sansa looks as if he had just kicked her dog and he quickly raises both hands and shakes his head. Her expression immediately changes and she’s smiling again. “Good! Now, let’s try Batch 1. This one is the original recipe so here.” 

And that’s how they spend the next hour -- Sansa explaining the ingredients to each batch and cutting out a slice for Jon to try. In the first few minutes, he’s ecstatic because not only does he get to spend time with a beautiful redhead but she’s actually a fantastic baker. Each batch is delicious and he has a hard time choosing which he likes more. But by the half hour mark, Jon is thinking he wouldn’t mind if he never had a slice of lemon cake for the rest of his life. By the end of the hour, he is lying down on the tiled floor of Sansa’s kitchen, his cheek pressed to the cool surface, while Lady is cuddled against his side. 

“Jon, just one more batch, _please_!” 

“No. God, no.” 

“But you promised,” she whines but he has his eyes closed so he doesn’t get to see the full force of her puppy dog eyes, which is for the best. He truly cannot eat any more. 

“If you want your floor to remain vomit-free, Sansa, you will let me live.” 

She huffs and he hears her drop to the ground beside him. “I guess after batch 15, it was getting a bit much, right?” 

“You said there were only ten!” Jon accuses, not lifting his head up to level a glare at her. An hour ago, he was a nervous wreck around her, but now, he is too exhausted to think of anything else. 

“I know,” she says softly. “I kind of lied a little bit there. I’m sorry. I was worried you’d leave.” 

Jon exhales out sharply in something resembling laughter. “Now, you’ll have to roll me out.” Sansa laughs too and that at least make him smile and forget about the ache in his stomach. “I’m just going to lie here for awhile, okay?” 

She must nod because there’s a moment of silence before she quickly says ‘sure’. Another moment of silence passes by and then he hears scuffling. Lady is being pulled from under his arm to which he protests against only feebly, but he suddenly feels her hands circling his arm, lifting it and then dropping it around her waist. Jon’s eyes fly open and he finds her shocking blue eyes staring back at him. 

“I thought I’d keep you company,” she says, as if this is the most normal thing in the world, but her smile is timid and she’s flushed pink. 

Jon doesn’t answer her. He merely draws on his last vestiges of strength and leans forward, closing the gap between them, to drop a soft, chaste kiss to her lips. “Okay.” 

A lot happens in the next month. Jon starts dating Sansa and he’s fairly sure he’s going to marry this girl, not that he mentions it just yet, but after a month, he’s 99.99% sure he will. 

For one, Ghost instantly loves and adopts her as one of his pack so that’s already ten times better than Ygritte and Ghost. Without any living family left, this was a make it or break it moment for Jon, so he’s thrilled and a little sappy when he finds them cuddling on the sofa one night, Sansa’s head lolled on top of Ghost’s as she’s passed out asleep. That’s when he realises, truthfully, but the feeling becomes more solidified the more he gets to know her. 

By week two, he meets Rickon, who may look like a ‘frail’ boy but he is nowhere close to being frail. He’s wild and full of life, incapable of being still for too long. And soon after, he meets Arya, who is the kind of sister he probably would’ve wanted for himself if he had any siblings. Then Bran, a smart and intuitive young man, and Robb, who simultaneously threatens to kill him if he hurts Sansa and decides Jon is his new best friend and ropes him into weekly poker nights that Theon, Sam and Tormund eventually join in on. 

It’s the complete ease of their previously separate lives melding into one that really seals it for him. Sansa is the real deal. She’s _it_ for him. There won’t be another girl like her in his lifetime or the next; no one who is as crazy about lemon cakes as she is, no one as thoughtful, intelligent or downright stubborn to the point of driving him mad on occasion as she is, and no one as gentle or compassionate or loving. He loves her without a sliver of doubt in his mind and he’s definitely going to tell her one of these days. Totally. 

But Jon doesn’t really get a chance to because soon, it’s food fair time and Sansa is in full-blown meltdown mode. She has narrowed the lemon cake batches down to four potential entrants but after that first ‘sort of date’, Sansa has thankfully excused Jon from ever having to taste test her lemon cakes again. So it’s Tormund, Arya, Rickon and Robb gathered in Sansa’s lounge forced to try the four different batches. 

“Is it just me that can’t tell the bloody difference between either batch?” Arya asks, dropping her fork down onto the coffee table with an audible clang. Jon squeezes Sansa’s shoulder before she can lunge at her own sister.

“I think Batch 3 is the driest,” Tormund says, who is taking this uncharacteristically serious, but the big lug seems to adore his new girlfriend. Apparently they’re ‘ginger twins’ and so she’s basically like his sister now. Jon doesn’t see the logic in that but he can’t complain. 

“Really?” Sansa stabs Batch 3 with a fork and stuffs it into her mouth. She makes a face and frowns. “You’re so right!” 

“I know my cakes,” Tormund says proudly. Arya and Robb snort but he ignores them. Nothing ever really fazes Tormund anyways. 

“Personally, I think Batch 1 is too sweet,” Rickon says next. “I don’t know if that’s what you were going for but I like Batch 4 the best.” 

“Me too,” Robb agrees. “Batch 1 is too sweet. Batch 2 is just okay. Batch 3 is dry. Go with the fourth one.” 

Sansa doesn’t look convinced. “Are you guys sure?” 

“Yes!” everyone says in unison. 

After more than a month of listening to Sansa complain about Evil Mum, he’s been more than a little excited to meet her. Jon didn’t really have a lot of expectations but he did have an image of what she’d look like in his head: some stuffy woman in a cardigan buttoned to the top with sensible shoes and a no-nonsense haircut. What he gets is a surprisingly stylish woman, noticeably wealthy without trying too hard to be and a severe frown permanently etched onto her face. 

“Oh Sansa, you’re here,” she says, saccharine-sweet.

Sansa squeezes his hand tightly. “Hello Cersei.” She pauses, not responding to the implicit taunt, and turns to him. “This is my boyfriend, Jon. Jon, this is one of Rickon’s classmate’s mother. Cersei Lannister.”

 _A Lannister_ … He knows of them. They’re a supremely wealthy family. One of them, if he recalls correctly, is a policeman like him but in a different division. He can’t remember which one but he knows it’s a Lannister. He doesn’t hear good things about the family though and they’ve been told to steer clear of them if they can help it. Nothing good ever comes from getting involved with a Lannister. 

But yet here he is.

“Ah, it’s nice to meet you, Jon,” she says without feeling and offers him a perfectly manicured hand. He shakes it and returns the sentiment. 

They exchange some more cuttingly polite chit chat before Sansa excuses them and drags Jon as far away from Cersei as physically possible in a small food fair. “I hate that woman. I hate her so much, Jon! If murder was legal, I would -” 

“You should probably not finish that sentence in front of a cop, even if he is your boyfriend,” Jon says and kisses her to shut her up. But like with most of their kisses, what should’ve been short and quick turns languid and deep, desire pooling at the centre of his stomach. “And you should probably not do this if you don’t intend on finishing it.”

Sansa smirks and kisses him one more time. “I fully intend on finishing it. Just after I win this competition. C’mon; let’s go set up.” 

In the end, neither Sansa nor Cersei win the lemon cake competition; instead, it goes to a newcomer, the aunt of some transfer student named Margaery Tyrell. Sansa does come second, however, and it’s enough to satisfy her because she still, in her words, ‘beat that evil bitch cow from hell’. 

It shouldn’t be the moment he says it. It’s hardly romantic. They’re both sticky from all the pastries and sweaty because Scotland has decided to have a heatwave in May, which means it’ll probably rain nonstop all summer. And frankly, she just finished ranting about her arch-nemesis so it’s definitely not the right time but it slips out before he can stop himself.

“I love you.” 

Sansa freezes whilst in the middle of packing away the leftover lemon cakes. She looks like a deer caught in the headlights and Jon begins to panic. He really shouldn’t have said that. 

“I mean…” he tries to backtrack but he doesn’t have a reasonable excuse for having said it, so he just blurts out the truth in a mess of words and run-on sentences that’s so unlike him. “I just - you’re amazing and it’s really hard for me not to shout about how amazing you are every time we’re out in public because you are. You’re smart and kind and stubborn and a little insane but you’re perfect that way, so yeah, I - I do love you. A lot. It’s kind of scary how much. Shit, can you please say something? Otherwise, I’ll just keep -” 

“ _Jon_ ,” she touches his arm and he jumps. “The first time we met, you came over and tried 15 slices of lemon cakes for me. I’ve been in love with you since.” 

His whole body sags with relief and an overwhelming surge of joy expands throughout his body. He reaches for her, hands curving around her hips as he pulls her towards him. Jon smiles, loving the way she feels so right in his arms. “You have?” 

“I have.”

Jon kisses her again; this time, he pours every ounce of feeling into that one kiss to show her just how much she means to him. It’s only been been a short while but that doesn’t matter to him. Not when everything about Sansa makes sense or that she just makes _his_ life make sense, like somehow his whole world had been tilted until she walked in with her Type A personality and decided to unclutter his life and right it back on its axis. She’s a whirlwind and a calm stream all wrapped into one person and Jon loves her more than he could fully explain in just one kiss, so he pulls back. 

“More than lemon cakes?” he asks with a smirk.

Sansa rolls her eyes and wraps her arms around his neck. “That’s pushing it.” 

“Hey!” 

“Well, my lemon cakes _are_ pretty good.” 

“Better than Evil _Bitch_ Mum’s anyhow.” 

Her smile is infectious and bright. “You said her full name!” 

“For you, Sansa? Anything.” 


End file.
